In a game played on the edge of a knife, three plays in the final two minutes could have very easily gone against the visiting team

MILWAUKEE — There were two minutes and six seconds left in Game 5 on Thursday night , and it was all there for the Toronto Raptors. It was also all there for the Milwaukee Bucks.

Giannis Antetokounmpo had just finished a soaring alley-oop, of the kind he does where his hands at the time of the catch look to be about at the level of the luxury suites. The basket cut the Toronto lead to one. Fiserv Forum was a bowl of rolling thunder, and despite all the Raptors had done to that point to recover from getting speed-bagged by the Bucks to open the first and third quarters, they still needed to close the game out.

The biggest Raptors win ever was, remarkably, in their grasp, but it was precarious. Kawhi Leonard, with a dozen points already in the frame, brought the ball down the court, and attempted a long pull-up three-pointer. Not his finest moment: it was early in the shot-clock, and the attempt hit the front iron, and in most instances this would have given the Bucks a chance to take the lead. But Leonard followed his miss and grabbed the rebound under the basket, where he was immediately fouled. He made both free throws for a 98-95 Toronto lead.

“That is a critical play that can’t happen,” Bucks coach Mike Budenholzer said after the game. He was then asked how deflating that kind of a play can be in crunch time. His answer was succinct: “Very.”

The highlights of Toronto’s tremendous win, the ones immediately etched into NBA lore, will be the shots hit by Leonard and Fred VanVleet in the fourth quarter, as the Raptors seized the game in the final minutes, and seized a 3-2 lead in a series that is, incredibly, tied in total points after five games. But, as much as the visiting team made clutch plays on both ends of the floor in that stretch, it was also the benefit of a healthy dose of good fortune. Not unlike Leonard’s magical four-bouncer to win Game 7 against Philadelphia, the ball behaved admirably for Toronto down the stretch. With the Raptors heading into Game 6 at Scotiabank Arena looking suddenly like a team that is doing everything right at key moments, it is worth noting the parts in which they escaped by the narrowest of margins.

With 35 seconds left and the Toronto lead down to two, Leonard threw up an awkward, fading turnaround jumper as the shot clock expired. Initially thought to be a clean airball that would have handed possession to Milwaukee, the officials determined after a video review that the shot had grazed the rim, which meant there was no shot-clock violation and a foul on Brook Lopez, who battled Marc Gasol for the rebound, was valid. Gasol made one of two free throws to give Toronto a 100-97 lead.

On the ensuing possession, Malcolm Brogdon had the ball in the left corner and Pascal SIakam reached out to swipe it away. The ball went out of bounds, but there was still plenty of time on the shot clock for the Bucks to draw up a high-percentage play on the reset. Except, after a video review, the officials decided that the basketball had hit Brogdon’s leg on the way out of bounds. This was close to a game-deciding reversal. The Raptors now had the ball with 26.8 seconds left, up three, and all they had to do was not throw it away and the Bucks would be forced to send them to free-throw line for clinching free throws. Even there, as it would turn out, the Raptors caught a break. Kyle Lowry caught a dangerous lob from Leonard, and two Bucks closed to foul, and officials somewhat mystifyingly did not call the foul. Lowry slipped a pass to a wide-open Siakam, who dunked for a 102-97 Raptors lead, with 16.3 seconds left. Ballgame.

That would be three plays in the final two minutes — Leonard’s offensive rebound, the shot-clock violation that wasn’t, and the Brogdon turnover — that, in a game that was played on the edge of a knife, could have very easily gone against the Raptors. The last two even did go against the Raptors: as often happens in high-leverage situations late in a basketball game, the initial whistle favoured the home team. But the wonders of instant replay allowed Toronto to survive both calls, and prevented the Bucks from crucial possessions when it was still a one-possession game.

The Toronto Raptors, authors of so much playoff heartbreak in recent seasons, getting a couple of key breaks with their season on the line? I’m not sure I would have believed it unless I saw it with my own eyes.

And yet they did, and as happened to the Raptors last year when so many chances to win Game 1 against Cleveland died on the rim, it is the Bucks left to wonder what might have been, and how the basketball gods seemingly conspired against them.

With Game 6 ahead, Raptors fans should hope that there is not some kind of cosmic rebalancing in the offing.